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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23604184">the nights are lovely, dark and deep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/noun/pseuds/noun'>noun</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Monsterfucking, Size Kink</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:41:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,930</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23604184</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/noun/pseuds/noun</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The beast is upon her before she can really pull herself together again, let alone sort through the mess. The mass of his bulk bends her back, pushes down her chest and presses her knees into the hard path. At her neck, she feels his hot, damp breath. Claws scrabble and plow little furrows into the dirt, and she puts her hand over his and squeezes. The nuzzling at the back of her neck stops immediately, and he lets out a long whine.</p><p>It is not an apology by any means, but she supposes she is unlikely to get one.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Woman Viewed With Suspicion By Isolated Townsfolk/Monster Lover In Their Woods</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Smut 4 Smut 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the nights are lovely, dark and deep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainellie/gifts">captainellie</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mrs. Howland pours a quarter-pound of sugar into the bag—no more, and no less, exactingly fair. In this she is better than Mrs. Wright, who runs the other dry goods store, and would charge her twice as much for the same amount. But that does not make Mrs. Howland kind, only better in comparison, and she doesn’t offer her any kind words as she places the sugar with the rest of her purchases and counts out her payment.</p><p>But she doesn’t spit in her path or sell her mealy flour, and that’s enough.</p><p>When she gets outside, she can see the sun starting to dip below the pines. Behind her, Mrs. Howland closes and locks the door. She catches the older woman’s eye as she reaches out the windows to pull the shutters closed.</p><p>“It’s getting on late,” Mrs. Howland says, and then she pulls her head back inside and the shutters thump closed. “It will be dark soon enough, too dark to be outside.”</p><p>Not kind, but not <em>unkind</em>.</p><p>All the other houses along the main street are shut tight against the wind and the night. She envies their chimneys puffing smoke, their tidy kitchen gardens with walls high enough to keep the deer out. Funny, that, as there haven’t been a surplus of deer this year or last, not enough of them bold enough to come this close to town even for the easy pickings of cabbage and radishes. Still, there’s fish from the harbor, and if they walk an hour or two down the path in the opposite way and into *those* woods, they can still find the deer.</p><p>She estimates that she’ll be home before full dark, and tucks the handle of the basket more comfortably into the crook of her elbow, and leaves the village behind.</p><p>At first, the trees stand guard along the path, orderly and regular. As she goes deeper, the branches begin to reach for one another, firs creeping closer to the edge of the road, dropping needles to mix with the dirt and scattered gravel. When her father and brother were still living, wheel ruts were worn into the path. Now, the only wagons that come down this path are rarer, once a week with the post for the villages up the coast. It is far easier to reach them by ship.</p><p>Even if the canopy did not wind together to darken the road, the sinking sun would have. Still, she knows when to turn off and take the path that leads between the trees, retrace her own steps from earlier in the day.</p><p>It wasn’t always like this. It was easier, when she still had family. But she’s proud of what she has now, of the snug bed waiting for her, of the quilt on the foot and her well-stocked larder.</p><p>A twig snaps somewhere behind her to the left, and she stops in the middle of the path, waiting. Somewhere far above, an owl hoots softly, and she resumes her walk, switching her basket to the other arm, idly checking the items inside with her free hand, making sure they’re packed tightly together.</p><p>The second snap is too close, and between one step and the next she breaks into a run, boots slapping against the packed dirt. She keeps the basket close to her chest but it still bounces, the wicker bumping into her hip with each swing. Behind her, something gallops, all attempts at subtlety lost.</p><p>The basket hits the forest floor, rolls, scattering the bags. She ends up on her hands and knees anyway, pushed forward, her thoughts briefly as scattered as her purchases.</p><p>The beast is upon her before she can really pull herself together again, let alone sort through the mess. The mass of his bulk bends her back, pushes down her chest and presses her knees into the hard path. At her neck, she feels his hot, damp breath. Claws scrabble and plow little furrows into the dirt, and she puts her hand over his and squeezes. The nuzzling at the back of her neck stops immediately, and he lets out a long whine.</p><p>It is not an apology by any means, but she supposes she is unlikely to get one.</p><p>“No,” she says, and the weight lifts. She pulls herself onto her knees first, wipes her hands off on her skirt. The dirt smells rich, but it’s too late in the year for it to smell like growing things. She doesn’t look back as she stands and gathers everything into the basket, checking the bags and carefully wrapped packages for any damage. Luckily, there seems to be none, though in this light, can she really be sure?</p><p>She feels the eyes on her back the entire time, but she doesn’t bother looking back until she’s sure everything is as it ought to be, everything tucked back inside the basket.</p><p>Again, she feels warm breath. It is too cold to go unnoticed, and she ought to rebuke him for pushing, but the whine was so pitiable (and it was at least half her fault for running) that she doesn’t. And when she does turn to look at him, his head is dipped, and if he is only playing at being contrite, he is doing it well.</p><p>When she reaches up, he places his cheek in her palm, and his skin is like suede. The forest is quiet, now, all the night sounds an orchestral susurrus undisturbed by anything other than the sounds of her own breathing.</p><p>A few minutes down the path, her cabin waits, with the quilt on the foot of the bed, and a larder she must restock with the things in her basket. Instead, she stands on the tips of her toes and reaches her hand to cup the back of his head, and pull him down closer to her.</p><p>He yields. He always yields, and if he did not, perhaps she would have the sense to be afraid of the horns, the teeth, the claws. She is not so foolish to think she understands him perfectly, but they have come to an understanding in what language they can share, and he is a comfort.</p><p>His forehead presses against hers, and she closes her eyes and reorients herself. The village is always unpleasant. She does not know what they have seen on her, only that it began with her refusal to move out of the woods when her father and brother died, and that now it is a weed grown deep into their hearts. Do they blame her for the noises they hear at night? For the slaughtered chickens, and the skittish deer? They would not ask her to move now.</p><p>His teeth are sharp, and there are a great number of them. She kisses him on the corner of his mouth, which is not really built for kissing, and his tongue dragged across her cheek, pulling a laugh from her that has him cocking his head, mouth lolled open. </p><p>"Alright," she says, glad they are clear of the basket. "Alright. Lay down."</p><p>His legs bend like a deer's and not a man's, but he lowers himself willingly onto his back, horns scraping at the dirt, and she follows him easily. It says a lot about what he is that he does this so quickly, without fear of challenge or vulnerability.</p><p>She hitches her skirts up and settles astride him, letting the fabric drop around them, the hem and her knees both in the dust and pine needles of the forest floor. She'll be picking them out of the wool for days to come, and her thighs are strained from being split so wide. It's not a position in which she has a great deal of strength in, not enough leverage to control the course of events, but she has an advantage; he has always been an excellent listener.</p><p>The skin on his belly and thighs is finely furred enough more like unto fine lambswool, soft and curled, and his cock, initially half-hard to her touch, firms and is easily held in place by her hand as she sinks onto it, slow and careful as she takes him inside her. He is so large in height and size both that it is easy for her senses to be consumed by him. Even when he is only nearby, as he sometimes is when he watches her work; chop wood or wash her clothes in the stream, his height alone makes her feel small. When he watches her from the treeline while she is further away, his presence still manages to have weight.</p><p>Perhaps she would be more thrown by his shape, his size, his smell if he was not the whole of her experience. As it is, he is all she knows. She has never ridden a cock that was not so thick, the head tapering and the shaft ridged. So it is not unusual to her that as she begins to ride him, the hands that tighten about her waist to better help her move are tipped with claws. It is not the fucking she gets when she is bent over a fencepost and he is free to do as he likes, rutting into her wildly until she feels wrent in two. It is far more controlled, and his eyes, usually so sharp, begin to cloud over. The small, rolling thrusts will be enough for her, combined with the image of him below her, the way he huffs and scrabbles at the dirt, the way he looks at her like he needs her. She is very content with this and this alone. Already, she is warm, easy, sure that this will bring her to completion if only they continue. His hands tighten. She can feel the claws now even through her bodice. For his sake, she speaks, when all she wants is to communicate as he does, in a way that feels more natural.</p><p>“Please,” she says. “I want-”</p><p>That's the truth, isn't it? She wants, aspires, and in that she is very human. She wants terribly enough that she invited in the monster that had everyone else terrified, at the cost of her own good name and standing. She supposes it was worth it, for this, because when he does brace one hoof on the ground to give himself more grounding, and really make use of his hold until she is bouncing, bun jostled out of the pins, it feels wonderful enough to justify everything else. To be wanted, like this. To be held, like this. </p><p>She screams when she comes. She is not afraid of anything hearing and coming to investigate, because she has the scariest thing in the forest between her thighs. And all at once he, too, siezes, lips pulled back from teeth, snarling.</p><p>In the afterglow, before she has pulled her skirts back down and taken her basket from where it still sits a few steps away, she strokes his chest and the side of his jaw. It is full dark, the sort of dark one only finds in the deep woods, and the moon only offers a little light.</p><p>In a moment, she will stand and leave him, and the only proof once she is in the comfort of her own house, with its fireplace and comfortable little bed will be the seed even now sliding down her thigh. But, if she looks out the window, she suspects she will always see a pair of yellow eyes.</p><p>She is not afraid of the dark.</p>
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